The New England Patriots were outplayed by the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, but you could easily make the argument that they would have had a better chance to win had it not been for some horrible officiating. Tom Brady is not willing to use that as an excuse, however.
As almost anyone could have predicted, Brady took the high road during his weekly interview on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Morning Show” on Monday. He said having calls not go your way is part of the game and that it’s up to the Patriots to do a better job with the things they can control.
“We’re just trying to keep grinding them out and tried to put ourselves in a position there at the end with four plays in the red area and just didn’t produce well enough to get the job done,” Brady said. “I don’t ever make any excuses and I’d certainly never blame the referees. I just look at what we’ve got to do and how we have to get back to work this week and find a way to go to Cincinnati and get a win.”
Brady’s right that the Patriots had plenty of chances. Even with the bad calls, they still had a 1st-and-goal opportunity from the 3-yard line late in the game and failed to score a touchdown. They instead settled for a field goal to cut Kansas City’s lead to seven with minutes remaining, and they got deep inside the red zone on their next possession and once again could not score.
Having said all that, the officiating mistakes were egregious. It all started when an official blew his whistle on what turned out to be a fumble from Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. Patriots cornerback Stephon Gilmore scooped the ball up and looked like he had a chance to score, but the play had been blown dead. Then on the ensuing drive, the refs ruled that rookie receiver N’Keal Harry stepped out of bounds on a catch-and-run that was clearly a touchdown. Since New England had to burn a challenge on the Kelce ruling, they didn’t have any challenges left for the bad call on the Harry play.
Some of Brady’s teammates weren’t so kind to the officials.
Great game by the chiefs and their “fans”……They both beat us. Well deserved I guess….
— Patrick Chung (@PatrickChung23) December 9, 2019
Duron Harmon on the officiating: "I know the refs have a hard job. I'm not going to say their job is easy and just make a better call or do this better but at the end of the day, we all have a job, and we all get paid money to do the job and do it well." #Patriots
— Michael Giardi (@MikeGiardi) December 9, 2019
Ironically, it looked like it was the Chiefs who could be headed for a disaster well before kickoff. They managed to overcome that bizarre situation and score enough points to top arguably the best defense in football. Even if they got some assists from the officiating crew, Brady knows the Patriots once again made too many mistakes on offense.
